Disadvantages of endless mainsheets?

[Ian McColgin]

I think I'm missing something here.

I've used an endless sheet/guy for the spinnaker. You never have very much total extra slack in the sheet/guy as one gets eased as the other's trimmed. This solves the problem of lot's of spagetti rolling about. The big trick is to make it long enough that the sail can be bundled into whatever set and strike place you use.

I've also applied the principle to a main halyard turing it into a halyard/downhaul and eliminating the need to coil the halyard's fall.

But a main sheet, two speed or simply double-ended, involves lots of extra line in the cockpit when close hauled. If it's made truely endless, if your long splices run perfectly through the mainsheet blocks, you're still left with a couple of spills of line. I guess that so long as there's no need to coil, a true double ended rig - no extra purchase on one side, could always be eased from the side with a bigger pile of line, always fed off the top of the heap. If the two sides are asyemtiric advantages, one might easily foresee a time when you'd by trying to ease off the bottom of a pile of sheet.

So, it seems to me that given the massive changes in the amount of line to flake about, a double ended main sheet should remain just that, double ended.

Have I missed something? Perhaps I'm too much a slave to my experience in long boomed traditionally rigged catboats and schooners.